From a post to The Shaman's Rattle

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This past weekend in San Diego has been an exercise in frustration, and I've spent a lot of time stalking my reaction to the events and non-events - both of which were equally annoying.  Long story short, we normally work Renaissance faires.  This past weekend, we worked a huge science fiction event at the SD Convention Center.  To say I was an unhappy camper would be rather like saying the sun is sorta hot.  I literally felt as if I had been dropped down inside a more intense madhouse within the madhouse, and though I was having a fine understanding of why clarity is the second enemy of a wo/man of Knowledge, even clarity itself wasn't sufficient to answer the questions of WHY I was having this kind of reaction, especially since I used to attend sci-fi cons regularly as a vendor, speaker and writer.

What it all boiled down to would require a book unto itself.  But in a nutshell, what I really discovered is that I was seeing my own past in these people, and simultaneously recognizing the abject futility that would result should any attempt be made to sway them from their chain maille and the buckets on their head and their total immersion in the world of "fantasy" to such an extent that the fantasy had lost all ability to heal and had turned, instead, to a symptom of the dis-ease.  Having spent more than 20 years of my life in the same type of indulgence, I speak from experience, and not any sense of judgment, except perhaps of myself. 

I seem to be at a critical place in my own life at present - a crossroad where I can either continue doing the same business indefinitely, or begin to branch out into other things which are more in alignment with the path of my heart.  What's interesting is that when it's "time" to do something different, pathways seem to open - not to make it easy for us, but to at least show us other opportunities.  That's certainly been the case in my life over the past month or so, very intensely.  Still don't know where it will go, but I think that depends largely on where and how I "force it to go through the motions of actually occurring."

Intent is really the backbone of a warrior's foundation, but it requires Will to force that intent to manifest.  Like the old joke about the man who was complaining to God that he had been praying for years that God would let him win the lottery, but now he was an old man, still poor.  To which God replied, "You have to buy a ticket." 

The problem I encountered when I was working with writers years ago is that a lot of them were waiting to be discovered.  They weren't really writing or producing much - just sending out "sample chapters" here and there, and wondering why the world wasn't beating a path to their door.  Same in the warrior world - it's a matter of us remembering to "buy a ticket" - put will behind our intent in order to force our desires to go through the motions of actually occurring.  What stops us - usually - is fear of the unknown.

As far as fantasy immersion, I guess for me it comes down to what I said originally.  When the fantasy becomes all-consuming, it loses its ability to heal and becomes a symptom of a much deeper dis-ease - which is usually a dissatisfaction with the Self at a deep level.  Don't get me wrong - I strongly advocate the use of fantasy, imagination, creation, writing and even role-playing games as a means to get in touch with the aspects of the self which have been programmed out of our conscious awareness.  But as with all things, there is a fine line between role playing games, and becoming a role-player.  The trick with all of it is that a warrior needs to have the awareness to see beyond the tool, and to keep it AS a tool, rather than letting it take command.  In that way, the tool remains at the level of controlled folly.

That's the whole thing about lessons, I think.  I was extremely unhappy during the entire convention and couldn't really figure out why until afterward when having some time to reflect on the "lesson" -- which was really a lesson on the dangers of indulgence.  It's one thing to use fantasy as a paradigm for one's double.  It's another thing when one starts to get stuck in the energetic gravity of the fantasy itself.  

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My mother is 84 (tomorrow, as a matter of fact), and unless I were to drive out to Florida, pick her up physically, put her in the car and bring her to California to live in my spare bedroom (I think that's called kidnapping), there is very little I can do to "help" her.  Used to make me crazy, but I finally came to the conclusion that her choices have to be respected, even if they appear on the surface to be self-destructive.  I can advise and I can offer, and I can even occasionally send anonymous gifts of money in the mail (which she believes come from her church), but other than that, I cannot change her mind or force her to leave her home.  It is her choice to stay, and my lesson has come to be one of unconditional love - which often includes the hard task of letting people destroy themselves even if it may be in my power to "save" them.  One of the very first things Orlando ever said to me was, "You can only save yourself." 

The most annoying of all is that, by their own choices, warriors set themselves up to be in the path of lessons.  You say you don't want or need anymore lessons - but if that were really true, the lessons would cease and you would live in an idyllic setting in the woods somewhere over the rainbow.  And, alas, much as that sounds appealing at times, I think that would be the definition of "dead".  Warriors and lessons seem to go together like blood and vein - it's simply within a warrior's nature to seek lessons, even and especially the hard ones.

If the person is a warrior, the event becomes a lesson.  If they are a phantom, it becomes a tragedy or comedy within the play, but all is folly, either way.  The warrior's way enables us to face the lessons with awareness and an opportunity for growth, while the phantom's way allows for experience that may or may not ever be assimilated into any sort of foundation of Knowledge.

 I've found that "detachment" is really the only sane position of the assemblage point for dealing with these types of lessons.  I'm not talking about shutting off all feeling - but essentially approaching these events with the awareness that it is all just a huge script penned on the surface of water, destined to wash itself away before you can blink.  Easier said than done, and don't think for a moment I'm not scared shitless when I think about some of the lessons of my past, and some of those that obviously and inevitably still lie in the future.  I just have to keep reminding myself that what survives & transcends/evolves is the perfected Self and not the scars. 

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